Monday, May 30, 2011

Jump / your voice (a collaboration)

the deeper the darker
like me
you stretch on superciliously forever
inviting and foreboding
all at once

I smell you in my thoughts
feel your edgy crystals on my tongue
the salt in the air
the air in my lung

you roil and foam and I think
– I hope –
you came looking for me
like I seek you when I am blue
and we match

then
when I splash into you
your greedy hands lick my flesh
eagerly
gorge on me until full
swallow me in
and then

then
there’s no more you and I
as you become the skin
that envelops my soul

poem: Brigita Orel, photo: 'Collage' by Cathrine Lodoen
~

your voice
is
one I've read on a 1000 pages
past
voices and characters fingered through
in books devoured and loved
lives longed for repeatedly
returned to me
from dusty shelves
fresh now from cover to cover
like coming home
bookmark me.

poem: Cathrine Lodoen , photo: 'reading' by Brigita Orel
~

Notes on the Process

While reading Hotel World by Ali Smith, Cathrine was inspired to write the poem ‘Your Voice’. The photo is Brigita’s response to the poem with the overlying words ‘remember you must live’ that appear several times in Hotel World. The creation of this work was like a straightforward conversation between the poet and the photographer. This exchange is mirrored in the conversation between the poem and the photo which illustrates how we can become so absorbed in words and stories that some of them stick with us long after we’ve put down the book.

The poem ‘Jump’ was created as a reaction to Cathrine’s photo with the same title, depicting a girl splashing into water. The image evoked the feeling of surrendering to another being, an outside force, until we merge with it/him/her into a single entity. A further reaction to this was to modify the photo so it would reflect the longing of submerging oneself into the ocean and becoming one with it. The result was a collage of images of a girl wading in water and finally plunging into it.